Things To Do When You Are Dead
by Impractical Beekeeping
Summary: A post-Reichenbach tale of biology, guilt, friendship, gambling, and death. Part One of Songs of Expedience - Sherlock Holmes
1. Phase 1: Fresh autolysis

The decomposition of a body is sometimes divided into five sequences. I'm going to try to keep references to these more clinical than graphic, but they will continue over the course of this narrative. If this disturbs you, I apologize. This is largely why I decided to increase the content rating.

Disclaimer: I am attributing motives to fictional characters I do not own.

See the end for notes.

* * *

**Phase One: Fresh (Autolysis)**

We are on the rooftop, and he is dead.

I confess, I hadn't expected him to fire into his own mouth, although somehow I was reasonably certain he wasn't going to shoot me. It occurs to me now that I should have been more concerned about that possibility, but there seemed little point at the time. If I have miscalculated the next step in these proceedings, there's a good chance I'll die anyway. You won't be dead, though. That's the important thing.

His heart has stopped beating and his capillaries are draining. His body heat is dissipating along an exponential decay curve: two degrees within the first hour, to be followed by an additional degree every hour until ambient temperature has been achieved. Within three hours, the muscle fibres will contract and not release, chemical signals lost with oxygen depletion. The blood no longer pumped through his body pools and will eventually cause lividity. Chemical reactions cease, enzymes are released, and autolysis begins. This cellular collapse is subtle, virtually invisible, in contrast to the starkly spreading pool of blood beneath his head.

_Pallor mortis_

_Algor mortis_

_Rigor mortis_

_Livor mortis_

Putrefaction

Decomposition

This is the stillest he has ever been, I think. The gunshot still rings in my head. It is going to make it so much harder to hear your voice when I call you, but I can't allow myself the luxury of listening to your words much anyway. It is only important that you hear what I have to say to you. I need you to set things in motion. You are the only one who can help me. I need you to help me destroy myself because it's the only way I can think of to save you.

You have to understand, and I hope eventually you will: this is quite possibly the worst thing I've ever had to do, in a lifetime positively littered with things Not Good. There is no alternative, though. I've thought this through a million times, and the equation always resolves the same way: either I die, or you do.

I have to take myself apart now. My reputation. My identity. My heart. To some extent, my complete annihilation will come as a relief. Most of the work has been done for me already. I just need to add the final crimson seal on it all.

Self-destruction is something I excel at. I've been consistently autophagic since birth. I burn from the inside, and the best I can ever hope to do is keep the flames contained. I was beginning to think I had finally learned to slow down that infernal metabolism, but in retrospect, I was wrong. Imagined strength has made me weak. There were too many factors I failed to account for this time. Other people, for example: him, you, them. To destroy myself is nothing much, but I have to start considering the blast radius.

It's true: caring is not an advantage. It is catalysis. It is impossible to stop once you've begun. Increasingly complex reactions and obligations unfold and terrible mistakes are made. It is clearly better to feign ignorance in the name of expediency, and yet I find I positively hate the look on your face when you come up against the manifestation of me that doesn't seem to know how to care. I do, you know. I am incapable of feeling in moderation, so I try to avoid the entire business of emotion altogether. I do this with varying degrees of success. Enough to make a convincing sociopath, I suppose, although you never did buy that story. If either of you had, I suppose none of this would be happening now, would it?

When I flippantly mentioned I'd be lost without you, I genuinely meant it. This is me, becoming lost already. I desperately need to tell you my plans, and of course I can't, although I will try to leave you with some oblique suggestions of the truth. I know you can figure this out. Focus, John.

Right now I am acutely aware that I have come to rely upon you to see the little things I get wrong. There's always something, and simply talking to myself never did help me find the flaws in my logic, the holes in my knowledge. Molly assures me this is going to work, and I am reasonably certain she's right. It would be much better if I could talk it through with you first, though. That's one of the many things I'll need to learn to live without: talking to you. How are there so many important things to lose? It defies reason.

Now I am going to tell you lies, you will listen, and I will fall.

I cannot begin to express how sorry I am that it has come to this.

I'm not allowed to.

* * *

Notes:

Thanks for slogging through to the end, dear reader!

Here are some defined terms I've included on the advice of a reader who pointed out that not everyone is obsessed with biology or chemistry.

Autophagic: Self-consuming. Autophagy is generally a normal cell function that allows resources to be reallocated in the cell. It can go horribly wrong, though.

Catalysis: The introduction of an agent (the catalyst) that changes (often accelerates) a chemical reaction.

_Pallor mortis_: Blood drains out of the capillaries and pale dead people become... paler dead people.

_Algor mortis_: Lowered body temperature after death.

_Rigor mortis_: What makes a corpse a stiff. The muscles contract and do not relax because the signal fails to arrive.

_Livor mortis_: Blood pools in the body, leaving the downward-most bits an unpleasantly vibrant color.

Putrefaction: Various microorganisms (often found in the digestive and respiratory tracts) start digesting cell proteins. In turn, they produce gases that create an unpleasant smell.

* * *

In the next chapter, Sherlock can't resist showing off. Moriarty? He's just going to slowly go bad in a box.

I hope someone likes this. If you do, feel free to let me know. Comments are much appreciated! This is my second work.


	2. Phase 2: Bloat expansion

**Phase 2: Bloat (expansion)**

I've done it.

Some people do their best thinking when they've got a gun to the head. Once again, it seems I do mine when there's a gun held to yours.

I had so little time to make my preparations. Molly's assistance was crucial to my success. I imagine you're thinking she procured me a corpse to fling over the hospital roof. I considered flinging Moriarty, of course, but we were being watched by at least one of his snipers. It wouldn't have been convincing. I couldn't risk it.

It is a seventy foot drop from the rooftop of St. Bart's. At my mass, a fall to an unyielding surface such as the pavement would, statistically, result in spinal or pelvic injury, ruptured organs, or outright death. Further research indicated three interesting facts: One, that a fall could be made less dangerous by adopting a specific posture. Two, that shaving off a bit of the distance would reduce the force of impact enough to improve my odds of survival. Three, that arranging to land on a softer surface would increase those odds further still.

The rest is trigonometry.

I jumped; you saw me do it. What you did not see, stood as you were with a partially obstructed view of St. Bart's, was that I landed not on the pavement, but rather inside a conveniently parked bin truck full of bags. As I later discovered, I broke my left clavicle upon landing. It's fine. I'm not dead.

As I was falling, I remembered childhood dreams of flying. Asleep, my unconscious mind was convinced that flying was a simple thing, like floating in a pool. If I could only position my body just so in space, I could defy gravity. It seemed so plausible, but of course, it was rubbish. I confess, at various times in my life, I've been haunted by the memory of that feeling. This is the closest I have ever been to that.

It's true that falling and flying are, very briefly, the same thing. It's all in how you end it.

You might wonder why there was a trained medical team conveniently standing by with all their gear. Not to knock the medical establishment, John, but no one reacts that quickly, that thoroughly, to an unexpected suicide. You're familiar with emergency response scenarios, so I'm rather hoping this will be one of many such coincidences to stand out in your memory. I suppose it might take a while to percolate.

After the fall, I was assisted by two members of my homeless network, who doused me in warm blood. While human, the blood was not mine. In fact, it wasn't even my type. Hospitals are remarkably reluctant to relinquish blood that could be better used to save a life. No, this was some O positive I'd wheedled out of Molly weeks back for an antibody experiment. You might even remember having seen the bags in our refrigerator, but perhaps that little detail escaped you, blood being comparatively innocuous.

I was also, and this was a bit risky, given a jab of methohexital, so I'm afraid I missed some of the proceedings. Contrary to the claims of sensationalist literature, it simply wasn't possible to drug myself into catalepsy. Tetrodotoxin, supplied by the pufferfish, can induce a reasonably realistic simulation, but symptoms take at least thirty minutes to appear, and the dosage is a bit tricky. Methohexital (as you know from surgical experience) acts quickly and is relatively safe. What it cannot do is stop a man's pulse.

It also prevented me from seeing you rushing towards me, only to be knocked down by a carefully-placed cyclist. In your disorientated state, it was a reasonably simple matter for me to feign death and for you to be intercepted before you could touch me long enough to realise the truth.

I've been told you suffered no lasting physical harm. I still regret the necessity.

Later, we did employ a corpse, but it was (obviously) neither mine nor that of some hapless stranger supplied by Molly.

I am reliably informed that there is an inexpensive coffin resting beneath that tasteless headstone with my name on it. Perhaps someone will enjoy the humour implicit in burying the corpse of a consulting criminal in a plot marked with the name of the consulting detective he hounded into a false suicide.

Inevitably, Richard Brook will be proven to have been a fabrication. When my people came to spirit away his body and scrub at the bloodstains, they also picked up my phone. I had recorded our conversation, of course. Molly arranged for it to be delivered to my brother after a decent interval. I would have preferred to have it go to Lestrade, but considering the scrutiny his department has been subjecting him to, it seemed imprudent.

Mycroft has already discovered the small anomalies we planted in Molly's falsified autopsy report as a warning system. While it would have been more dramatic for him to storm in, demand to see my body, and then be presented with Moriarty's corpse, it wouldn't have been expedient. Suffice it to say, he knows I'm alive, although at present, he does not know precisely where I am.

I suppose I'll have to see him at some point. I'm quite sure he'll have some well-chosen words on the subject of my suicide. I will have some words with him in return. He has to help me now. I imagine that that will be maddening, although we will both agree that Moriarty's criminal web must be brought down.

John, I've thought about it, and I am no longer entirely comfortable with Moriarty's role in this. Not in a physical sense, you understand. As you might have noticed, I'm not terribly bothered about corpses unless they're doing something interesting.

Right about now, he should be well into the bloat stage, albeit a bit delayed due to the cold weather we've had. The anaerobic microbes have been feeding away, and the hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide, and methane gases they produce as waste will be causing his body cavities to expand, and his skin to turn a bit green. Any moment now, the pressure may cause his body to rupture. Meanwhile, his tissues will be liquefying. He is, quite probably, frothing at the mouth a bit.

He will, if anything, smell worse than he looks.

Incidentally, I really must apologise for the time I spilled that putrescine in the flat. It was kind of you to think of sending Mrs. Hudson on holiday. I wish we had gone as well. There's an old murder site I've been dying to visit in Cornwall. It might have made up for the Baskerville case.

Dying is harder than I thought it would be.

I talk and I talk, and it's only now I see that I've made a terrible miscalculation regarding my own tolerances. Moriarty's welcome to that melodramatic headstone and the odd bunch of flowers. That's not the bit that bothers me.

What does bother me is the thought of you coming to visit me, and my not being there. I can't bear my friend talking to the mouldering body of someone who isn't me. It isn't right, and I wish Molly and I had never thought to do it.

I've seen you talking to him, you see. Of course you don't know what you're doing; how could you?

I can't stand to see a dead man take the last thing that should be mine. I'm sorry, John.

* * *

Notes:

I have manipulated the show's timeline a bit to serve my needs. To be fair, it is a bit difficult to pin down in places.

There are a million Reichenbach theories. I chose a combination that felt plausible and suited the story I wanted to tell. Your mileage may vary, and if you want to chat about it, send me a message! I have visited London but never lived there, and I have never seen St. Bart's. I may have missed something massive. According to the show's writers, we all have. :)

I've tried to cut down on the jargon without totally sacrificing the tone. I am still beta-free. Please feel welcome to offer critiques!

* * *

If you need definitions, here they are:

anaerobic: an organism that does not require oxygen for growth (some, in fact, do best without it).

methohexital: a fast-acting barbiturate used as an anaesthetic. I imagine Sherlock would have required a rather large dose.

putrescine: a foul-smelling chemical compound produced by amino acids breaking down.

* * *

Next up: Mycroft, a sniper, and a necessary transformation. Moriarty is still dead.


	3. Phase 3: Active Decay CDI

**Phase Three: Active Decay (Decomposition Island)**

Being dead is excruciatingly boring.

I haven't gone out since the day I saw you. I shouldn't have done it then, but I couldn't stop myself. Now my brother likes to remind me that I can't afford the danger of being seen.

When I met with Mycroft, I reminded him he contributed to my death, and suggested he make up for it by helping me dismantle Moriarty's operation and paying my half of the rent on 221B. He didn't argue. It was almost disappointing.

Having the resources of the British government at my disposal is coming in useful.

I've had a doctor to set my collarbone. They've been careful to avoid giving me anything stronger than paracetamol because my brother likes to play nanny, of course. I have access to a comprehensive database of Moriarty's business associates, the loan of a decent computer, and a new phone. Later, I'll be given convincing identification documents under a new name. Apparently I don't get to choose my alias. Knowing Mycroft, it will be subtly hateful or somehow absurd.

I look like someone else. My hair is much lighter and short enough to be straight. I have tea coloured eyes that I need to remember to remove before I sleep. I have my left arm in a tedious sling and an incredibly dull wardrobe to go with it. I don't mind that everything buttons or zips. I do mind that it's all shapeless and shabby and colourless.

I've taken up smoking again. It's funny how lighting a cigarette has become a tiny ritual of self-loathing. You would not approve of this, and that is also part of the allure. Thinking of you being angry with me in this small and predictable way brings me a strange sort of peace.

Imagining this is far better than what I saw in your face the day you went to visit my grave.

I don't know whether you've been back. I haven't asked, although I'm sure my brother could tell me. I won't give him the satisfaction.

Molly makes me endless cups of tea that are not as good as yours and jumps whenever I say her name. She is far better than I deserve. I should tell her that; I believe it's the sort of thing people like to hear.

I really must absolve her of any further involvement in this before she slips. It helps that she never talks to anyone much, but it's only a matter of time before a chance meeting and an awkward conversation try her acting skills. It could be you, or Lestrade, or Mike Stamford. I can't let that happen.

It's so boring here. I've been playing with the cat, and it's no substitute for a microscope, or a violin, or a gun. It likes to sleep on my coat, and sometimes, my feet. It sheds a great deal.

It's no substitute, but it seems to like me - God knows why. I think having it around makes me need to sleep more. It appears to enjoy stealing my warmth. No one knows exactly how they purr, did you know that? It's probably produced by rapidly passing air over the vocal folds, but there is no anatomical feature peculiar to the cat that seems to be responsible for the ability. Apparently the sound frequency they emit (between 25 and 150 Hertz) has been theorised to promote bone healing and density. If my fracture becomes suspiciously improved, I'll thank Toby. He is certainly trying hard enough.

I think my legs are atrophying due to the length of time I've spent on Molly's sofa. I think I need another cigarette. I think I need someone to text besides my brother and Molly. I think I need a murder. I think I need to leave the country.

I am being stripped down to something that, while physiologically still me, is not a me you would recognise. I am merely an outline of someone I used to be.

Given enough time, every man becomes an island. A cadaver decomposition island, for example. That's the outline a decomposing body leaves behind in the soil as various liquids are leached away. For a time, it's a place where nothing will grow, a brown and barren patch in an otherwise green and fertile space.

The man in the casket that should have been mine should be liquefying now. I don't have enough data regarding the soil composition of the grave or the coffin materials to know quite how far he has gone. Despite a sealed environment with limited access to insects, various bacteria and fungi should be making a proper soup of him. The feeding of _Phoridae_, or casket fly maggots, will be accounting for a considerable loss of body mass.

Moriarty's three hired guns (one for you, one for Lestrade, and one for Mrs. Hudson) have all dispersed. Two of them were apprehended leaving the country. They knew very little about their employer, alas - they were mere mercenaries. One remains at large. He interests me for two reasons: first, he appears to have held a significant position in Moriarty's organisation. It is possible he has fallen heir to what remains.

Second, he appears to have been stalking a certain John Watson for quite some time. I believe he was the man Moriarty sent to shoot you the day I died. For all I know, he is also the man who strapped you into the Semtex vest before we met Moriarty at the pool. I'd ask you about him, but of course, I can't.

He's ex-military, although I doubt he ever moved in your circles. He did serve some time in Afghanistan. He was a colonel in the 1st Bangalore Pioneers. He specialised in explosives, which would certainly explain Moriarty's interest. He was dishonourably discharged, but his record seems to have been expunged, enough so that my brother came up blank when he tried to access it. He is supposed to be an unusually good shot. His name is Sebastian Moran, and at the moment, he has managed to fall entirely off the radar.

* * *

Notes:

No definitions today. Have a question? Feel free to ask.

Next up: Loads of things happen, and I may very well tread on your non-canon-yet-fashionable dreams of a pretty, sulky Sebastian Moran. If you have them, that is; you're apparently reading my work, after all.

I am thankful for my reviewers! This story is not everyone's cup of tea, but some of you have been kind enough to offer words of encouragement despite its lack of fluffiness. You are lovely and I'd be lost without you. :)


	4. Phase 4: Advanced Decay

**Phase Four: Advanced Decay (scavengers depart)**

Sebastian Moran is, in many ways, unexpected. Military photographs and school records only told me so much: Eton and Oxford, and nothing terribly remarkable beyond that. His marks were good, but not spectacular. His academic focus wavered between literature and history. His father was a government minister with family money, a short fuse, and an embarrassing predilection for gambling. His mother was a British-born Iranian who died in a collision with another motorist when he was twelve.

The most useful item came from the Woman. She's dead, of course, but much as I am: nominally. She owes me a substantial favour for that one.

She no longer invites me to dinner. It is both a relief and a disappointment. She has lost her nerve.

_Tell me what Sebastian Moran likes,_ I said.

She sent me a high-resolution photograph, and that told me more than all of Mycroft's information put together.

What I knew already:

He is 5 foot ten inches. His frame is nothing extraordinary; his musculature would suit a runner. His hair is medium brown, straight, sunstreaked, and rather shaggy about the ears. His skin is a light golden brown, and his eyes are hazel. He has a pale crescent of scar tissue about the left eyebrow, which indicates both that he is left handed and that his skill with a rifle was hard-won. His features are regular, although there are indications that his nose has been broken, and the creases around his eyes have far more to do with his time in the desert than his age (45 in January).

Irene's photograph shows a man in worn blue jeans with faded knees. He is wearing an inexpensive slate blue flannel shirt with a torn left cuff. It has been repaired with tidy hand stitches. He is wearing black boots with vibram soles, clearly military surplus and not the ones he was issued. They are dusty and worn. The wear patterns in the leather indicate he regularly hooks his right foot around chair legs and bar stools, and at the moment, he has it flexed against the metal frame of a glass observation window at the London Zoo.

His thumbs are thrust into his hip pockets in a gesture that should be nonchalant. Closer inspection, however, shows slight hyperextension of the middle phalanges, which suggests he is applying significant force to the sides of his thighs with his finger tips.

His lips are parted and the right side of his mouth is quirked up slightly. The tip of his tongue is touching his right upper canine. His eyes are wide.

He is looking at an adult male Sumatran tiger, and he might as well be looking in a mirror.

_Where did you get this,_ I asked. _When did you get this?_

_Jim Moriarty, _she typed_. A few months ago. He said, "Wish you were here."_

He wanted to let her know how easy it would be to have her killed.

I've been tracking down his old associates for weeks, but this... This is interesting. Sebastian Moran cannot be found. If he's running anything, I don't see it.

If this were the sort of novel you like to read and I were a hero of _any kind_, I'd be crossing the globe in search of Moriarty's lesser criminals. I'd be finding some sort of deeper meaning in the mountains of Tibet and herding sheep in New Zealand, no doubt. All highly impractical, really. As it happens, I _have_ found some useful information in Tibet, but only through the help of a Norwegian naturalist called Sigerson who has convenient friends and a surprisingly good blog. He is to lichen what I am to tobacco ash. You wouldn't like him. He's a bit abrupt.

I've been to France, and I've been to Ireland. I've been to Wales (and spent the entire time missing my coat. It was cold.). But I've accomplished ever so much more here in a squalid flat with a computer and an untraceable number.

My brother helps. We are civil. I hate it more.

I very nearly miss Molly's cat, but it was for the best.

I have my own network now, and it's working rather well. So well, that I asked myself, "What if Moriarty wasn't dead?"

Of course he is. But how many people know that to be true? It occurred to me that at some point, it might come in useful to become him. So to some extent, I have.

I've been very restrained, and that has netted us some of the stupid ones. Some gunrunners. Some confidence men. Some drug lords (ladies, in fact, and _that_ was interesting).

I've got his phone. I haven't wasted my chances on the passcode yet. One thing is curious: we scanned it and it's... just a phone. It rings sometimes, and when it does, I take down the numbers. Some of them have proven useful. Others have not.

Things are falling apart now. If you've seen the news, you know that crime cartels are crumbling everywhere. When the host dies, the parasites run mad until there is nothing left to consume. Some of them even turn on each other.

The maggots have gone from his body. The criminals that required care and feeding have left as well.

Some of them, though... they're waiting for something. What, I can't say until I get into this damned thing. It's bound to be something simple, or mad, or both.

I need to randomise. I know you wouldn't approve of my methods. Nothing is working. I have to think. No. I have to stop thinking.

It is better that I don't think of you at all.

Sometimes I forget you. It's the work. Until it is done, you can't exist.

You don't. It's fine.

I don't.

* * *

Notes:

Thanks again to my reviewers! Your continued interest inspires me.

There will be a certain amount of violence in the next chapter. And he gets into the phone, of course. He has to.


	5. Phase 5: Dry

**Phase Five: Dry (Remains)**

I've done it, and it was far worse than I expected.

Not the process, as such. I frittered away weeks before I broke down and decided the best way to go about it was to get as high as a kite.

I became frivolous, and more than a little mad. I tried music and formulae and everything, staring at my own fingers like they belonged to someone else as I typed in the dark.

I am dead.

So I tried it.

_Dead._

And that was it, of course.

And that was what caused the Wellington Arch to explode at four o'clock in the afternoon. I couldn't have known, but I should have deduced it.

Twenty-five people died, John. Twenty-five.

I didn't know what I had done until after I had texted Mycroft to tell him I had broken the code. I was so proud of myself. I started reading everything I could. I was making plans until the car came.

He couldn't look at me.

Every good thing I have ever done has also been bad.

This is a very bad thing, and I know this: if I stop, I fall.

* * *

I keep going. I use the information. I use everything I have.

Ronald Adair is a tall man with fair hair and brown eyes. He has an inconsequential cocaine problem and he likes to gamble. He isn't terribly good at it.

Sebastian Moran likes to gamble.

I find him. It's simple when you know where to go, and it's all been laid out for me like an air traffic pattern.

I gamble. I lose. I lose three thousand pounds in an evening. I go back and do it again.

I find him quickly. I am the sort of creature he likes to hunt. Diffident, foolish, and eager to burn money I haven't earned in a game I don't understand. I am a white rabbit to his tiger.

He's got the most unmusical voice a public school education can confer upon a man. It's flat and dry. He doesn't say much.

I attempt small talk. I always hated it before, and it's dreadful now.

He sits at the table, right foot hooked around his chair leg, and he stares us all down. He doesn't drink much, but all the others do. I do, to an extent. Just enough to be convincing. I am a man with a compulsion. I have a horrific bank balance. I am shy.

My hands shake. Neuropathy, but it looks like the other kind of nerves.

Three days in, I get bored. I slip. I count cards constantly, and the tedium of knowing the answer and not doing anything with it gets to me. I win. Maybe it's the cocaine.

Afterwards, I lean against the wall of the club and light a cigarette wondering whether what I have done can be dismissed as luck.

It can't. I took it too far. I did it several times.

The door swings open and it's him. I smile. It hurts.

"So," he says.

I am a rabbit. My eyes are wide.

"You're smarter than you look," he says. "Was that a joke?"

I talk fast. I fabricate debts and a woman. I apologise. I cry, a little. I'm good at that.

He invites me to join him in another game, if I can do it again. I agree.

We do this several times, and we split the proceeds. He invites me to a private game and gives me the address of his flat.

It's on Baker Street. It's across from 221B. Our flat, in fact.

He has been living there all along, and I had no idea. Mycroft had no idea.

It occurs to me that he still planning to kill you after all.

* * *

It's dark when I get out of the cab. I can see a light in one of the windows of 221B. I see a man's head silhouetted against it. It's you.

I send a text to my brother. If I'd told him what I was doing, he would have tried to stop me, I think. I don't bother with that. Instead, I send him the address and "Sebastian Moran."

I turn off the ringer and stuff the phone into my pocket. I climb the stairs. I knock on the door.

He meets me with a microfibre cloth in his hand. He has been polishing a gun. Of course he has.

It's relatively unfurnished, but I can see signs that he has been here for weeks. It smells of gun oil and burnt toast.

"Please, " he says, nodding towards a chair.

New, cheap pine, seldom used. He likes the one with its back to the wall. The seat is more polished, one leg has been scuffed.

Two Russians arrive. One: bald, early fifties. New tattoos, locally done. Recently divorced. Works in a butcher's shop. Blood on his shoes, wore an apron, didn't change his clothes. Two: in his thirties. Wearing a suit that isn't his. Works in a chippy. Ink on his hands. Oil on his skin.

Moran pours us drinks, and we play. I barely touch mine. I can have one, if I make it last. Cocaethylene contributes to heart failure.

We win. Things get heated. Moran pulls a gun out of the drinks cupboard (it was behind a bottle of metaxa - duty free, Athens?).

They go.

"Cheers," he says. He smiles at me and shakes the ice in his tumbler. I drink the rest of mine. I never did care for whiskey.

He takes away the empty glass, and leans across the table. "We've done rather well tonight," he says.

I agree.

'The gun was a surprise," I say.

The right side of his mouth quirks up. "It shouldn't be," he says. "The thing about me, is, I like to hunt. I like to get what I am owed."

He doesn't blink. His eyes are green and gold. His pupils are dilated, but the lights are dim.

The lights are wrong. My head jerks. I am suddenly incredibly tired. It's midnight. I am never tired. I had one drink.

I bite my tongue. Pain is good. Pain brings endorphins.

"I like tigers," he says. "Killed one once."

I blink. Don't blink.

"Thing is, people are easy. Easy to find. Easy to kill."

I press my hands against the table and it seems a million miles away, like my feet.

"John Watson, say."

I am still. I am breath in my lungs. I am a chemical cocktail, going wrong.

"He's across the street. He is mine." He unhooks his leg from the chair. The gun is on the scarred formica countertop. The distance favours him.

"Who is he?" I say.

Sebastian Moran touches his teeth with his tongue. "Who are you?" he says. It isn't really a question.

I say nothing.

"You are a dead man. And the best thing about a dead man is that no one cares when he dies again."

I feel like I am sinking through the floor. I feel like a dull knife is scraping across my optic nerves. I push myself out of my chair and towards the window. The glass is cold and damp against my face. I see your light across the street. I see nothing else.

"You're supposed to be good with detail," he says.

I bite my tongue until it bleeds. "I am," I say.

"Not good enough. I knew who you were the moment I saw you."

Good. Let's talk about me. If we talk about me, someone might come before you move on to the next thing. To John.

"Did you," I drawl. "What was it?"

"Your face."

My face is against the glass. The glass is cold. Cold is good. Invigorating.

"I'm a hunter," he reminds me. "I study my prey."

"Jim is dead, but that's no reason to stop now." He is on his feet. That was fast.

I turn my face away from the window. My depth perception has gone to pieces.

"No?" I ask. "What was he to you?"

"A means to an end. He let me do what I like."

_What does Sebastian Moran like? _

My mouth is dry. I'm going to die.

It's a Sig Sauer P226R, and it's aimed at my head. His breath is shallow. His stance is relaxed.

"I have several guns," he says. "This is the one I want to use."

My head is sliding down the window, almost imperceptibly. We are silhouetted here where anyone could see, but it doesn't matter. No one is looking.

I am going to die right in front of you and you will never even know this.

Think of Moriarty in his box. Pale bones in a brown residue. White mycelium creeping into the sodden wood. A network of something, pushing though. I can push through this.

I could - no. I can't. I can't reach. I can't move. I've crashed. My body is a mistake. This has all been a mistake.

I am too stupid to live.

"The doctor is next," he says. He smiles.

I think of William Blake. I think of the phone buzzing uselessly against my leg. I think of you.

I want you to live.

The bullet, when it comes, is a surprise.

It punches through the glass.

It catches him in the head.

We fall.

* * *

Notes:

Terms defined, if you want them...

Neuropathy: Weakness, tingling, or pain in peripheral nerves caused by illness, damage, or drug use.

Cocaethylene: Chemical compound formed by cocaine and alcohol combined. Bad times.

Mycelium: Fungal growth network. I am obsessed with fungi. They look pretty under my microscope.

William Blake: He wrote the poem "The Tygre" of course. If you haven't read it, you should.

* * *

If you're familiar with ACD canon, you'll note that I have stolen things and changed them. Not just from "The Empty House," but elsewhere, too.

Sorry about the Wellington Arch. I had some lovely times there when I was in London. I suppose I wanted to take it with me.

This is the last chapter. Thanks to all who have accompanied me along the way!

John shot first. :)

Sebastian Moran appears in my next story in this series, _Fearful Symmetry. _Read that before_ Things to Do When You're Alone_, which addresses John's experience. You may notice that their experiences of certain events don't always seem to align perfectly. This is deliberate.


End file.
